Saw (2004)

Given the fact there is a serial killer, Jigsaw, playing philosophically-motivated torture games, that comic actor Carly Elwes plays a rubber-faced Ash-like doctor whom it is sometimes hard to take seriously, and that Ken Leung's Steven Singh is a David Mills replica, it is entirely possible this original movie of director James Wan's Saw series was intended as a parody of Se7en, but whether that is true or not, the story of two men waking up in a puzzle box was taken seriously enough to spawn a long-running series of gruesome horror thrillers, and this original movie is possibly even responsible for the birth of the Escape Room craze that took over the world in the year of Saw's release, 2004.

★★★☆☆

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Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

As a kid, I was mad about this buddy cop sequel to Lethal Weapon that reunites Riggs and Murtaugh on a case investigating a rascist drug-dealing South African diplomat, but now, watching it again, the extent of its success beggars belief with nothing in it even closely resembling real police work and while the zippy story offers plenty of humour and tension between the cop duo and the bad guy, it is otherwise about as complex as a two-hour fistfight.

★★★☆☆

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Lethal Weapon (1987)

One interesting thing about this buddy cop action movie is the nostalgic image of its young, lithe and mulleted star, Mel Gibson - he plays cop-with-a-death-wish Riggs who partners with police officer and grounded family man Murtaugh (Danny Glover) to break a drug-smuggling ring - but the most interesting thing is how popular an action flick this was, spawning three sequels despite essentially being a protracted fist fight - largely plot-free, shallow, ridiculously macho, devoid of any creative flourishes and completely free of special effects.

★★★☆☆

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